Photo/Illutration A photograph of slain reporter Tomohiro Kojiri is on display in the archive room at The Asahi Shimbun's Hanshin Bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, on May 3, 2024. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

NISHINOMIYA, Hyogo Prefecture—A special altar will be set up in The Asahi Shimbun's Hanshin Bureau here on May 3 on the 38th anniversary of a deadly attack that took the life of a young reporter. 

The event will commemorate slain reporter Tomohiro Kojiri, 29.

The public can visit the special altar on the first floor of the bureau, which is located near Hanshin Nishinomiya Station, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the day.

It will also make a notebook available for the public to write down their thoughts.

The archive room documenting the case, located on the bureau’s third floor, will be open to the public on the day.

The incident occurred on Constitution Day in 1987.

At around 8:15 p.m., a masked man armed with a shotgun entered the editorial office on the second floor of the bureau and fired two shots, killing Kojiri and seriously wounding another reporter, Hyoe Inukai, who was 42 at the time.

An extremist group calling itself “Sekihotai” claimed responsibility for the attack, but the culprits have never been found.

The case remained unsolved and the statute of limitations for prosecution expired in May 2002.

There were eight incidents involving people claiming to be Sekihotai members from the late 1980s to 1990.

They include a shooting at The Asahi Shimbun's Tokyo Headquarters in January 1987; an attack on The Asahi Shimbun's Nagoya Headquarters’ dormitory in September 1987; and the attempted bombing of The Asahi Shimbun's Shizuoka Bureau in March 1988.

The National Police Agency conducted a wide investigation, but the statute of limitations expired on all these cases by March 2003.

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